Certificates and documents

The list stands in the manuscript itself, on the contents sheet of the appendix. The titles of this section are therefore the author's — not those of this edition. Where the volume names a date for a certificate in the running text, it has been set beside it.

• Enclosure 1 · page 50Abridged copy of the birth certificate of AdamDate named in the text: 9 April 1912 in Wola Brwileńska near Płock.
• Enclosure 2 · page 51Abridged copy of the birth certificate of WładysławaDate named in the text: 14 October 1909 in Zeńbok near Ciechanów.
• Enclosure 3 · page 52Complete copy of the marriage certificate of Adam and WładysławaDate named in the text: 10 April 1937 in Siemiątkowo Koziebrodzkie.
• Enclosure 4 · page 53Abridged copy of the birth certificate of BogdanDate named in the text: 26 October 1933 in Warschau (Warszawa), Hospital of the Infant Jesus. Form of the registry office of Warschau-Śródmieście, field 2 already bearing the name Bogdan.
• Enclosure 5 · page 54Abridged copy of the birth certificate of HalinaDate named in the text: 29 January 1937 in Łaszewo.
• Enclosure 6 · page 55Abridged copy of the birth certificate of GizelaDate named in the text: 29 October 1940 in Ćwiklinek, born a twin.
• Enclosure 7 · page 56Marriage certificate of Halina and Stanisław KowalskiDate named in the text: 8 February 1958.
• Enclosure 8 · page 57Marriage certificate of Bogdan and Teresa ChrobakDate named in the text: 30 May 1959 before the registrar, 4 July 1959 in church in the parish church of the Emaus quarter.
• Enclosure 9 · page 58Marriage certificate of Gizela and Adolf GruszycDate named in the text: 16 April 1966.
• Enclosure 10 · page 59Report on the AK activity of Adam BomertThe manuscript names neither the issuer nor the date. The report is the only evidence in the volume for the father's membership in the Armia Krajowa.
• Enclosure 11 · page 60Map of the villages from the story about Adam and WładysławaPlaces of the first and second chapters: Działdowo, Płońsk, Ćwiklinek, Gralewo, Raciąż, Łaszewo.

Enclosures 1 to 6

Civil-status certificates

Five birth certificates and one marriage certificate, all as facsimile. The copy of the marriage certificate stands above; here follow the enclosures in the order of the manuscript.

On the holdings

Why Renata is missing

The enclosures of the volume follow no scheme but rather what the author had in his hands. For Adam, Władysława, Bogdan, Halina and Gizela there are birth certificates; for Renata, the second twin, there is none, and she does not appear in the list of enclosures either. Her death is told in the second chapter.

Certificates for the older generation are likewise absent. That is the gap the volume itself names: the first leaf is devoted to the grandfather Jan, and the only things the manuscript has for him are a portrait and a date of death.

Enclosures 7 to 9

The three marriages of the siblings

Three certificates from the years 1958 to 1966 — the children of Adam and Władysława marry in Danzig (Gdańsk), and with each marriage the author notes that a new family has come into being.

Enclosure 8

Bogdan and Teresa Chrobak

The certificate for the marriage that had begun on 27 May 1956 with a white tango at a school ball. Before the registrar on 30 May 1959, in church on 4 July 1959 in the parish church of the Emaus quarter.

The sheet is in landscape format and, like enclosures 7 and 9, is printed as a facsimile. The three marriage certificates together document what the author repeatedly states in the text: that out of one family, with each of these years, a second and a third came into being.

Enclosures 10 and 11

Report and map

Enclosure 10 — report on the AK activity of Adam Bomert

The author writes in the second chapter that he learned only from later accounts by his mother that his father had been a member of the secret organisation the Polish Home Army. The report is the document that supports this statement in the volume.

The manuscript gives neither an issuer nor a date for the report and does not quote it either. It stands as a facsimile at the end of the appendix — at the point where the narrative leads into the underground of which it itself knows only outlines.

Enclosure 11

The map of the villages

A map of the area north of Warschau (Warszawa) with the places in which the family lived: Działdowo, Płońsk, Ćwiklinek, Gralewo, Raciąż, Łaszewo and Siemiątkowo Koziebrodzkie. It stands in the appendix under the title „Karte der Ortschaften aus der Geschichte über Adam und Władysława“ (map of the villages from the story about Adam and Władysława).

The map is, like all the sheets of this appendix, a facsimile from the manuscript. The author assembled it himself and marked on it the places that occur in his narrative.